Chasing down individual file-sharers is something the major labels largely left behind several years ago, but in an unusual development the IFPI has now won the right to identify dozens of Pirate Bay users that allegedly downloaded and shared an album before its official release. The CEO of Universal, the label behind the action, says infringers could be taken to court.

Every single week new lawsuits are filed aimed at discovering the identities of individuals who allegedly share copyright material online without the permission of rightsholders.

Most often these lawsuits are filed by porn companies, independent movie studios such as the one behind The Hurt Locker, and more recently book publishers such as Wiley. In almost all cases the aim is to identify users and get them to settle out of court, a strategy dumped by the major labels of the RIAA several years ago.

Now, however, there has been an interesting development in northern Europe. The case involves an album from a very young artist called Robin Packalen, a child sensation who appears to be Finland’s answer to Justin Bieber.

On 22nd February 2012, Packalen, who’s signed to Universal Music, released his first album. Unsurprisingly the official street date was beaten by two days thanks to an uploader on The Pirate Bay. This didn’t go unnoticed by his label.

After monitoring the swarm, IFPI and Teosto, the Finnish Composers’ Copyright Society, went to court to obtain the personal details of the individuals behind a total of 82 IP addresses.

IFPI and Teosto convinced the Helsinki District Court that the pre-release leak cost them significant sums of money. The Court subsequently ordered two ISPs, Telia Sonera and Elisa, to provide the names and addresses of the alleged infringers to the rightsholders as requested.

Telia Sonera, to which 34 of the IP addresses relate, said it would comply with the Court and had no further comment. Elisa (30 IP addresses) also indicated it would comply if it could, but it may not have the information being requested.

The news has spooked one individual who contacted TorrentFreak this afternoon. He told us that he was one of the file-sharers in the swarm when the album was released and after seeding for a long time he’s “99% certain” his IP address will have been tracked.

“It happened to be my little sister’s birthday and guess who is her idol? Yep, you guessed right. As I’m such a nice big brother, I decided to download for her Robin’s newest album as a birthday present,” he told us.

“Well, it now seems like that present is turning out to be quite expensive, should they decide to send me a letter asking for money. If they do, I guess I have no other option but to pay. I’m just a poor student that can’t afford an expensive legal adviser to help me out.”

The question now is what IFPI and Teosto (or perhaps Universal directly) will do with the identities once they have obtained them. According to Antti Kotilainen of anti-piracy group TTVK (the outfit that conducted the investigation), the responses will vary.

“Every case will be investigated separately. Consequences will vary from compensation to a criminal investigation,” he said.

But considering the artist in question here – none other than Finland’s Justin Bieber – the chances are that many children will be caught up in the sweep. What will happen to them?

“In those cases, we hope the families will have a serious conversation with their children about piracy,” Kotilainen added.

Jarkko Nordlund, CEO of Universal Music Finland, warned that more albums had been monitored and more action could follow.

“This is a constant fight against piracy. We want to make sure people know there are legal ways to buy music online. We will communicate with the TTVK and see if there are serious infringers that we want to take to court,” Nordlund concluded.

Update: Comment from Joonas Mäkinen, Pirate Party of Finland

Robin’s album has sold more than 80,000 thousand copies, and IFPI and the court handling the case see 82 downloads as notable financial losses? This is ridiculous. He can’t even get to the official top lists in the broken system because the album is low-priced in the first place. Simply the act of just going after these filesharers costs more money and time for the lawyers and courts than could be gained if those downloads were directly converted to physical album sales.

It’s now even in the official PR discourse that the millions of YouTube views of his music video are celebrated as a success. From the perspective of a fan and end-user, it often makes no difference if the musical pieces are available for listening on YouTube, streaming services or as downloaded files. 82 people thought the latter was a more convenient way for them. This is not a good enough reason to allow third party organization get their hands on private information of ISP customers.